Why F1 is going green…

Did you know that one trans-Atlantic flight with a big plane puts out more pollution than all the f1 cars at a weekend?

I’m pretty sure the teams would know this, I’m pretty sure the FIA knows this. But the people who don’t seem to know this are the people who complain about f1’s environmental impact. If the environmentalist keep going on about the cars, then the FIA will change the cars to make them happy, that way F1 get praised for researching into greener technologies. Everybody wins.

If F1 is known worldwide as a green vehicle testing ground, then surely that will make the sport look great for all the usual environmental complainers, and more people will be inclined to watch.

The reason it works is that environmentalists tend to be quite short sighted. (Generally speaking ofcourse) That’s why they buy hybrids and think they are saving the planet, (when if you include pollution caused by production) buying a second hand range rover is way more economical, and production aside cows do way more damage to the atmosphere than any car.

Untill the environmentalists start attacking the planes, we’ll still have a great global racing series, which will be an annoyance for F1 because jet engines are just so dam useful.

What do I think of the green changes in F1?

I like them, I think smaller engines are a step forwards, besides Farina won the F1 championship in 1950 in a supercharged 1.5, so I don’t know why people say things like “it’s just not F1.”

Surely creating just as much or more power from a smaller engine is a great thing to develop, hybrid and electric power as well, because the fact is, fuel prices are going up, if F1 development can allow me to put less petrol in the car then it can only be a good thing.

To be honest, I feel stupid just saying this because it’s so obvious. Formula 1 has a unbelievably tiny impact on the environment. The cars themselves are totally irrelevant. The air travel however probably does have a measurable impact, but again, it’s so tiny compared to, oh I don’t know…the rest of the World, it isn’t worth thinking about.

The only reason F1 is moving to “green technology” is to look good. The new engines may produce less “nasty stuff” that the current, but who cares when the effect is so microscopic in the first place.

To try and justify the new engines as making F1 more “eco-friendly” is beyond me. In fact, don’t bother- it’s impossible. It’s simply a PR stunt, which in the end will have no positive impact on either the sport or “the environment”.

But even as a way of attracting more viewers, I don’t buy it. How many people are there in the World refusing to watch F1 because it’s not eco-friendly enough?

It’s not about money or viewers, or even the good of the sport per se. It’s about giving eco-mentalists slightly less to complain about.

In the long term, appearing to be more environmentally-friendly will cause F1 a bit less hassle, even though the sport has not appreciable impact on the environment anyway.

I’m not an environmentalist, but I do appreciate that burning billions of tons of coal and oil isn’t good for anyone in the long run. But people get so hung up on the tiny things, rather than looking at the bigger picture. And unfortunately F1 is one of those things. And it just so happens that it’s easier for F1 to go along with this “eco-friendly” bulls**t than try to fight it.

While I don’t accept that there is anything like man-made global warming (or at least not significant enough to warrant idiots complaining about it) I do think it’s good practise to be more economical with fuel and other resources. F1 is in a terrific position to show off this technology to the world and should be expected to do so but any F1 car of the past 61 years has not exactly been comparable to your average road car except for having 4 (or 6!) tyres.

If F1 can bring about more hybrid technology that’s great. The world will have to adapt one day and rightfully so. This should not be to the detriment of our SPORT (notice I highlighted the word ‘sport’). Perhaps I would be more worried if I felt like 2013 onwards is going to be a bore-fest. I don’t think it will be.

I’m sorry but to say its such a small dent in the environment is dreadful. What if everyone thought that? (which most do) “Oh I won’t recycle because what is the difference it’s going to make, I’m just one person”. The same goes for F1, they should be responsible, even if they are as VettelS says, “but who cares when the effect is so microscopic in the first place” that’s not important.

Well if we all thought like that then imagine that. It is small minded and extremely selfish.

I support the new rule changes, as long as they don’t change the sport for the worse, which frankly I don’t they will. However I don’t think it is going to bring any more viewers in. People don’t stop watching F1 because of the “lack of eco-friendly” engines etc.. They just don’t find it interesting enough, and then this is often a reason on the side.

I think F1 can show the technical prowess it has, and really demonstrate what can be done with such a tiny engine.

Why is claiming that F1 has such a small impact on the environment “dreadful”? It’s true, and trying to argue otherwise is just ignorant. If one person refuses to recycle, it won’t make a difference; if everyone refuses, of course it will be noticeable.

It’s not about “responsibility”- it’s about what ACTUALLY makes a difference. Just because something doesn’t conform to some sort of ideal, it won’t necessarily have an impact on the ideology as a whole.

I’ll repeat again: I totally agree with the eco-friendly World ideology. But making half-hearted, “symbolic” changes to such an insignificant factor (in this case F1) is pointless and futile gesture.

If everyone took a step back and looked at the problem as a whole, instead of being fixated on tiny, insignificant imperfections on the ideology which is yet to be realised, we’d all get a lot more done. “Fixing F1″ is easy- much easier than tackling the problem as whole. Unfortunately, it’s only the latter that will actually make a difference.

There is definite mileage in making F1 as eco-friendly as it’s ever going to get. I mean, we’re always going to have 10+ teams carting huge amounts of equipment around the world, but we can certainly do something about the cars themselves. (There are a few people who seem to think that a “World Championship” should have most of its races in Europe, but those tend to be the same people who think that the right-wing blogosphere is more reliable than the peer-reviewed scientific literature when it comes to global warming, so we can safely say that their concerns aren’t environmental).

Basically I think F1 can and should be an arena for the development of green motoring technology. As I said on the main site earlier today, I envisage a situation where teams are given a fixed amount of fuel and told to use it to produce as efficient and fast a car as possible. We could see all sorts of innovative solutions being developed, which could be transferred to road vehicles. It’s not just about setting an example – it’s actually about providing real, workable solutions to environmental issues in global motoring.

Sadly, the rules as they’re currently structured don’t allow for anything like this kind of innovation. But I think to remain sustainable and relevant, it’s exactly the direction F1 needs to move in. F1 is rapidly becoming nothing more than a very expensive spec series, which might provide a bit of short-term entertainment but ultimately won’t last very long.

Hmm, a lot of nasty (sorry to use the word but…) biases going on in this thread. We don’t want this to go the way of the Bahrain discussion.

If F1 can have engines that are just as good, but more economical, smaller, lighter, then go for it. But to me it’s pretty stupid to have a green technology in KERS and then have it inferior to already-existing ones.

If everyone on the planet died tonight there would still be global warming. It’s gone too far already. What we need to do is put effort into reversing what has already been done (geo-engineering) and making sure it doesn’t happen again. Unfortunately there’s a limit to the latter, the way world population is going (and crazy weather will be the least of our worries when it hits 10 billion)

I support buying time, but so long as we bear in mind what we’re buying ourselves time to do, because it’s going to be pretty unpalatable for a lot of people.

The important point is that the tech has to translate to road cars, if it does (and I have no idea if it does or not) then it’s not just a publicity stunt. This is one reason why the KERS rules, especially this years, are rediculous. They’re not learning anything from putting the same limited system back in the cars, I understand that the recession put a damper on things but it’s better to have nothing at all than have a system that isn’t being significantly developed.

@VettelS i completely agree f1 doesnt make a massive difference to things in the grand scheme of things, but to dismiss green ideas i find a little silly. Especially what bernie says, noise comes first. I never said it was dreadful to say it has a small part to play, because thats true. But as Tescos says “every little helps” lol.

I just think we often make decisions too fast in this sport, and by we i mean fans. Things such as kers were dismissed from the off and now weve got that back after a year absence.

Lets not make rash decisions, im sure we all care about the world we leave our kids, but lets make sure that we still leave them F1!

Going green does not have to do with F1’s direct impact on the environment.

Rather, as the pinnacle of motorsport, there is no better place to develop green technology than in fierce competition.

Competition leads to innovation which can be translated to every day motoring. It is this innovation than the changes are aiming for.

The idea of KERS itself isn’t bad. It’s just that with the way there are now, they are more seen as an extra boost in power rather than as a more efficient way to use fuel.

FIA set a lot of restrictions on the KERS for the sake of even competition and budget control. I say we let the brightest minds of F1 go ahead with developing it to the best of their abilities. Sure, it might discourage smaller teams from participating, but so be it.